One of the major preoccupations of the
Hopis is rain, upon which depends the corn
that is at the center of their life. If it rains, it
means the Hopis have performed their cere
monies properly and have lived a good life.
It takes little precipitation to make Hopi
corn grow-eight to twelve inches of snow
and rain a year-but that little bit is crucial.
I remember one dawn when we made our
way out on the desert floor just below the vil
lage of Shipolovi on Second Mesa. Leading
us were Darlene Quavehema, her older
brother, Phillip, and their father, Alonzo.
Alonzo lifted up a board from the dusty
ground, revealing a deep pit-a Hopi oven
for roasting corn. He filled the pit with sticks
and limbs of saltbush. Soon fire erupted
from the hole with a roar, tatters of flame
disappearing into the wind, and Alonzo told
us to go pick corn in a nearby field while he
tended the fire. "Usually an old man tends
the fire," Alonzo went on, adding that no old
man had been available that morning.
"You've got some gray hair," Phillip told his
father (who is in his 40s). "You'll do fine."
Shortly after noon we arrived back at the
smoking oven and dumped a truckload of
corn into the hole. Then we covered it for the
night. Next day at dawn Susanne and I met
the three of them at the oven.
Alonzo stood and held out sacred corn
meal in his hand. Praying in aloud voice that
reverberated through the thin air, he called
on the spirits of the place to enjoy the corn
roast with us. Then he lowered himself into
the pit. Soon buckets of corn emerged from
the hole. Before long Alonzo pulled himself
up out of the oven, drenched with sweat.
Phillip took his place. Then came my turn.
Though taller than most Hopis, I was way
over my head in that oven. Corn rested on
smoldering coals; heat penetrated through
the soles of my boots. I scooped ears into the
bucket and pushed it overhead-again and
again. Soon I came up for air.
"Pretty good, pretty good," hooted Phil
lip. It was a kind of competition: Who could
stay down there the longest? I lost.
We shucked some corn, eating amply.
Then, our truck loaded, we headed for the
Susanne and Jake Page are the authors of Hopi,
published this month by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
New York. Free-lance journalists, they live in
Waterford, Virginia.
village. There Alonzo's wife, Linda, de
lightedly called out "Askwali, askwali," the
word Hopi women use to say "thank you,"
and took charge of the corn. It had been Phil
lip's corn as it grew in his field, but once it
was placed in Linda's house it became her
property, as were the house and its furnish
ings in this strongly matrilineal society.
Sated with corn, I looked about. Four
ears, each a different color, hung in a bunch
on the living-room wall. "What are those
different colors about?" I asked Alonzo.
"The four directions," he explained. "Yel
low is north, blue is west, white is east, and
red is south. Those directions we came from
long ago when our clans gathered here."
The blue corn is used by a Hopi woman to
make traditional piki, a kind of corn bread.
She stirs ground blue corn, water, and a
pinch of ashes into a thin gruel. Then, in a
small stone house specially built for the pur
pose, she spreads the mixture on a smooth,
hot rock that rests above a fire. In an instant
the gruel turns into what looks like wet
parchment. She peels it off the rock, folds it,
and sets it aside to dry.
A Hopi woman may spend days in her
dark little piki house, making this important
blue corn bread-and developing a heavily
callused hand in the process. Before ceremo
nies and other important events such as
weddings, and even when a visitor drops by
a Hopi house, piki and other foods are given
out in astonishing bounty.
When Spirits Dwell Among Men
Having delivered the sweet corn to Linda,
Alonzo drove 18 miles to the Keams Canyon
boarding school, where he is a cook. After
work he would spend an hour or two tending
his cornfields and then proceed to his kiva,
an underground chamber where men pray
and make preparations for kachina dances
and other ceremonies. He would stay in the
kiva until after midnight, return home for a
catnap, and rise at dawn for the fields.
Summers are exhaustingly busy times.
Nowadays, many men like Alonzo have jobs
on the reservation and must still find time to
plant corn and keep vigil against weeds, ro
dents, and ravens. All the while, the villages
are in the midst of the cycle of ceremonies.
In the Hopi religion kachinas are benevo
lent spirits; from late July until December
Inside the Sacred Hopi Homeland
613